Low-income city dwellers have a dwindling amount of available affordable housing options on the market and the economically homeless have little hope of re-entering the rental market. Mobile alternatives are either too pricey (i.e. typical “tiny homes” or new Recreational Vehicles), dilapidated (inexpensive, aging RV's), or altogether illegal. Landowners have limited building space but do have available land—with no apparent way to exploit it for profit or tax-write off.
Permanent housing solutions are finite and expensive. With restrictive building codes and strict requirements limiting the number of affordable housing units that developers are incentivized to build, it is increasingly challenging for cities to build affordable housing within reasonable proximity to centers of economic livelihood. The push for long-term temporary solutions fills a gap of housing the economically deprived. Placing structures on wheels not only provides a way around building codes, but allows an inhabitant to relocate from property to property without uprooting household routine.
Tiny houses on the market are too pricey and have limited or no outdoor space. Newer Recreational Vehicles are also pricey, fail to meet traditional neighborhood aesthetics, and are stigmatized in the city because of the number of unsightly mobile homes parked on city streets, creating a popular resistance to their presence in neighborhoods. There is no existing mobile living space on the market designed to park on available residential land in a dense urban environment. Alternative mobile units are built for camping and traveling, not urban dwelling.
The tiny homes on foundation often fail to meet urban building codes, are prohibitively expensive to build, cannot be moved and are owned by the landowner, not the occupant or charity program organizing distribution. Existing tiny house villages in cities require large lots specially permitted by cities and require the resident to enter a main building for kitchen and bathroom needs. Owners of land are often already maximizing occupancies within homes and buildings, leaving open residential yard space the only remaining alternative for financial gain from tenancy, short of committing great cost and effort to permit and build new structures on that property.